


i'm on my own, you're at the beach hundreds of miles away

by thelemonisinplay



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Dimension Cannon, Dimension Travel, F/F, F/M, Gen, Parallel Universes, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25494649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelemonisinplay/pseuds/thelemonisinplay
Summary: "Do you think it counts as an emotional affair to realise you're still sort of in love with the Time Lord version of your partner?"Rose Tyler has thirty-six hours in her original universe to solve a problem, to catch up with old friends, and to get some sort of closure. And then she's heading home again.
Relationships: Martha Jones & Rose Tyler, Martha Jones/Mickey Smith, Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith & Rose Tyler, Thirteenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 16
Kudos: 107





	i'm on my own, you're at the beach hundreds of miles away

**Author's Note:**

> title from what's it gonna be by shura. just feels like a very doctor&rose line, what can i say
> 
> (a thousand different variations on this idea exist in a thousand different documents on my computer. obviously i had to play with them until something vaguely coherent came out of it.)

Rose lands in London, in a London that looks different from her current London (which she’d expected), and yet also different from her original London. Which she should’ve expected, over a decade on, but had forgotten to consider.

She’s got thirty-six hours to track down the Doctor, and then she’s got to head back, and they’ve got to reseal the walls. The plan is reasonably vague: twelve years have passed their side, probably around the same amount of time over here. Neither Rose nor her Doctor have any idea who the other Doctor might be in touch with anymore. Ideally, she wants to see the Doctor, have a little shout about making peoples’ choices for them, and check that he’s doing okay; to pop round and check on Mickey and give him a huge hug and catch up on the past few years; and then catch up with as many other people over here as she can – Jack, Donna, Martha, Sarah Jane, old friends from the estate.

Realistically, her Doctor’s suggested trying to track down Martha Jones first: she’s bright, brilliant and reliable, and most likely still works for UNIT so should have contacts even if she’s lost touch with the (other) Doctor. Of course, the others will have contacts, too, but the Doctor is utterly convinced that she’s the best placed to help. Rose wonders if he just wants her to work with Martha on saving the world.

Now that she’s here, though, in this familiar-unfamiliar environment of Waterloo Bridge, years upon years on from that lonely, universe-hopping twenty-something she used to be, her first instinct is to call Mickey. He was her original world-hopping partner, of course. It’s been twelve years, and she’s back in this universe, and it just feels wrong to call somebody else first.

He answers. Twelve years on and his phone number is still the one she’s kept saved on phone after phone after phone a whole universe away.

“Rose,” he says, cautiously, uncertainly, voice sounding almost exactly the same. He knows who it is. So he’s kept her number, too.

“Hi Mickey,” she says, and she can almost feel the weight of time passing between them. It’s been twelve years and they’ve both kept each other’s numbers and here they are, talking on the phone, a lifetime on. “Listen, I’ve only got a couple of days. I’m in London. Can we meet?”

“Rose, what’s – _what_? It’s been twelve years. Where have you been? What are you doing here? I assumed you went back to that other universe after we never heard anything – ”

“Yeah, I did,” she says. “It wasn’t exactly my choice.” There’s a heavy silence, and she worries she’s blown it; worries that disappearing without a goodbye (again) has hurt him too much. She wants to see him so badly for herself, but her feelings aren’t the only thing at stake here. “Look, are you still working with Torchwood? Cos even if you don’t want to see me, I’ve got some information Torchwood might need.”

There’s another pause.

“He dumped you back there? After everything?”

“It was a long time ago,” says Rose, shrugging though he’s of course not there to see it. She doesn’t want to get into that, not over the phone.

“Okay. I’ll come. I’m up in Glasgow, though, and my train isn’t til tonight.”

“I’ve got til Thursday morning,” says Rose.

They hang up after some strange, uncomfortable goodbyes. Rose goes to the Starbucks in Waterloo station. There’s a spot of bother: apparently all her Pete’s World £10 notes are useless. Money is plastic here, now, not paper. Funny, that. But she has a £20 which is still fine, so she manages to get herself a latte.

She’s just sitting down wondering who to call next when she hears a familiar screeching vworp from the distance, and she and her coffee tear out of the station again.

And there it is: the TARDIS. The original. She loves her current one very much of course; she’s raised it from that stolen piece of coral in much the same way she’s watched her mum raise Tony. Years of pouring love and gentle care into it, and now she’s got a mostly functional time and space ship, one that’s entirely _theirs_ rather than just the Doctor’s. And it has a working chameleon circuit.

But the one in front of her … that gentle hum in the back of her head is like finding a childhood friend, like coming home. And it is, in a way. Home to another, younger version of herself; the sister ship of her own (where else would they have picked up TARDIS coral?). Home to the girl who looked into its heart and survived.

She hurries towards it, and nerves spill up within her as she runs. She’s not really sure what to expect. She doesn’t know if the Doctor’s regenerated or how long it’s been for him, she doesn’t know how he’ll react to seeing her again, and honestly, she’s not sure how she’ll react to seeing him. He left her all those years ago, rejected her on a beach and told her to look after his allegedly dangerous, genocidal, human twin. But in leaving her, he gave her a life: her family, and himself, and the possibility of a love story: a proper one, where they communicated, rather than dancing an invisible line and admitting nothing, ever.

It’s been twelve years. She loves her Doctor. And she’s not sure what she wants to find in this one.

Rose still has her key. She’d taken it with her that first time and carried it with her for years; then it had come back with her on the beach. It’s the key they use for their own TARDIS, now; her Doctor has a matching one, found in the pockets of that old blue suit.

She’s just waiting for the relentless traffic to slow so she can cross the road when she hears her name from a voice behind her.

Rose turns, surprised. The owner of the voice is a grinning blonde woman around her own age, somewhat eccentrically dressed in a long, light coat over a t-shirt and cullottes. Maybe that's the fashion here, these days; Rose has no idea how fashions might differ between universes.

"Do I know you?" says Rose. It's been twelve years, after all; she doesn't immediately recognise the woman but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Rose has met a lot of people.

"Course you do! Or, well. You did. What are you doing here?"

The woman sounds positively delighted to see her, joy bouncing off every short northern vowel she utters.

And Rose has a sudden inkling. But ... no. Surely not.

"Sorry, how do you know my name?" is what she says. She doesn't want to give out information before she's got answers. Rose is good at this; she's been at Torchwood since she was twenty and travelling the universe intermittently since she was nineteen. She knows words are important.

The woman scuttles up to her, closer, so that they're face to face. They're around the same height, Rose notes. And the woman's eyes are hazel, like her own.

She doesn't look much like Rose facially, though. It's just a similar colouring. Similar shells.

"How long's it been? Are you avoiding your ... what is he, anyway? Boyfriend? Husband? Partner? Did you argue? I hope not, I really wanted it to work out for you, that's why –”

"Doctor?" says Rose.

"Yeah!"

Well.

This isn't at all what Rose had expected.

"Is this ... new?" is the first thing that Rose gets out, gesturing vaguely.

"The body? Sort of, yeah. Do you like it? I’m quite fond of it. Not so keen on how patronising men are, though, I had no idea it was this bad."

"They’ve always been like that," says Rose. This is surreal. The Doctor - what pronouns does Rose use, now? "I’m ... you still go by Doctor, yeah? And – is it _she_ you’re using now? Or something else?" It’s good to check these things before assuming. She’s made little mistakes a few too many times, unintentionally upset people she liked and respected, and has worked really hard to make sure she’s being inclusive and supportive at all times.

"She, usually. I think they see this body and just presume. But I’m not all that fussed really. I don't suppose I ever really cared, I’ve just not had much reason to think about it before. Funny that, isn't it? I’ve literally not once considered gender before turning up in this body. Anyway! How are you doing? What are you doing here?"

She doesn't half talk a lot. Mind you, Rose thinks, her one isn't one for shutting up either, but words are dragged out more, he peppers his speech with long "weeeeelll"s. This one seems to jump from one word to the next without stopping for breath.

"Oh. Yeah. There's some holes in the walls of the universes again - stuff was creeping through our end from other universes. We've closed them all up, and we'll be doing this one once I’m back, but we thought we ought to warn you before we did."

The Doctor grins brightly again. "Oh, thanks! I knew you were good."

"Thanks," says Rose. She's sort of glad it isn't the same regeneration. It makes things easier. There's a level of distance - of course, she hasn't seen this Doctor for a while, but the regeneration makes it clear that it has been a little while for both parties. Both of them have some distance from the past.

"How long's it been for you, then?" Rose asks.

"Oh, ages," says the Doctor. "Honestly, ages and ages. This is my third body since I saw you. I went to see you before I regenerated from that one, you know. Just to see you. I was always a bit of a romantic in that body, and you'd been the first person I saw - oh! How is the other me?"

It’s surprisingly exhausting, talking to this new Doctor. Constant information all the time, and not in the way she'd come to expect of her Doctor, not in a way that she knew and understood. Something new. Which makes Rose a little sad, actually; on one hand she appreciates the distance, but on the other it’s a reminder of what she’s missed out on.

"Yeah, he's good," is what Rose says instead. "We've got our TARDIS up and running, we're both still doing freelance work for Torchwood when they need us, Tony's got his GCSEs coming up ..."

The Doctor smiles at her. "Good."

They go into the TARDIS together and spend some time catching up. The Doctor wants to know all about her, and her family, and her Doctor. Rose tells her, and wonders if that’s some sort of longing in the Doctor’s face, but pushes that thought away. They’re old friends. Or maybe this is her ex, they never really did define anything properly. In any case, there’s no point dancing around the idea of romance twelve years on: even if Rose wasn’t happily in a relationship with a more human version of this very person, it’s not massively fair to either of them to drag feelings the Doctor was never comfortable discussing into their two-day reunion.

Rose wants to know all about the Doctor: friends, adventures, relationships. As always, the Doctor is more reluctant to share, and Rose doesn’t push. She knows there’s not really any point.

She hears some things, though. The Doctor’s current travelling companions, Yaz and Ryan and Graham, a trio from Sheffield of all places, who are back at home visiting friends and family. Mentions of other friends: Amy. Bill. Clara. From what Rose can tell, they’re all gone: dead, maybe, or just lost in the myriad ways one can disappear in the wilds of time and space. Again, she doesn’t ask.

They sit in the TARDIS pressed together like they used to, years and years ago. Only it’s not the same as the old console room, that soft greenish light and coral everywhere; and it's not the same as Rose's console room, which is of a similar design to their old one, the same coral interior but brighter lighting.

It's very nice, though. Very dramatic. Rose loves the coral, of course, but from a purely objective standpoint this is absolutely stunning. Rose says as much, stroking the console, and the TARDIS hums almost approvingly. She can't believe she'd mocked him for all this stroking, once upon a time.

"There's a biscuit dispenser now," says the Doctor, and presses a button. Rose glances at the custard creme which has just materialised and grins.

"You never thought to install one of these when I was on board?"

"I suppose not. Sorry," says the Doctor, but she doesn't look very sorry; she's grinning. Rose grins too; she can't stop herself.

"Just biscuits is it, or does it do other food, too?"

"Are you complaining that my biscuit dispenser isn’t good enough for you?”

It’s nice, catching up, sharing stories and jokes, discovering that they can still make each other laugh. The Doctor remembers her well; Rose finds it easy to nudge into differences between this Doctor and her own.

-

Mickey calls when he’s back in London, several hours later.

“You know he’s married now?” says the Doctor. “Or was when I last saw him, anyway.”

This is said so casually it feels like a punch in the gut. She’d wondered, obviously; it’s been over a decade, she’d sort of presumed things had changed in Mickey’s life. But thrown in like this? This Doctor doesn’t seem to have any sense of subtlety, so Rose lets it go, but she says she’d like to see Mickey alone, at least at first.

“It’s been twelve years and we never got to say goodbye,” she says. She sort of wants to say: _and that’s your fault_ , but that feels petty, and she’s not nineteen anymore. She’s not going to let it go entirely, that huge, lifechanging decision that was made without Rose’s consent, but she’s not going to shout at anyone about it. Not now. “I want to just catch up. I’ll come back. I’ll bring him, if he wants.”

She meets Mickey in the McDonalds in Waterloo station. It’s 24 hours, apparently, which is good considering the current hour. He looks good, though not at all like the Mickey she remembers: he’s wearing glasses, and an actual shirt with buttons which she doesn’t think she’s ever seen on him. It’s checked, but still. It’s surprising and lovely and an unsettling reminder of the weight of the twelve year gap between them.

They hug.

And they talk.

And if they both get a bit teary, well, they didn’t know they were going to be separated, and they didn’t know they were going to be reunited.

Rose fills him in on her family; Tony, who’s nearly fifteen now (“ _what_?” says Mickey, astounded, a little horrified), who’s predicted fantastic grades in his GCSEs; Jackie, who’s heading up a local organisation helping deprived kids (“she feels bad, I think, that Tony has all these opportunities that I didn’t,” says Rose); Pete, who’s funding it with all the profits from Vitex; all Mickey’s old friends and acquaintances from his six years over there.

Mickey tells her all about his own life. She knew about the marriage, of course, but she hadn’t known who he was married to, and she remembers Martha Jones from that day all those years ago (“we tried to invite you to the wedding,” says Mickey, and if Rose hadn’t already been crying a little this might have been enough to set her off). They have a four-year-old son, August. Mickey’s freelancing, filling in the gaps that UNIT and Torchwood used to fill. Martha’s gone back to working in the hospital, just while August is young. She doesn’t want to be complicit in her family being hurt again. (Rose can’t believe UNIT and Torchwood have collapsed, can’t begin to imagine how hard it is to fix up alien problems as just a handful of freelancers.)

She mentions finding the Doctor. Says her problem was with walls in the universes, but that the Doctor will sort it, as soon as Rose has left, so she doesn’t get trapped here again.

“Not because I don’t want to see you more often,” she says, “but I can’t leave them again. I can’t. I’ve got my whole life over there.”

“Yeah,” says Mickey. It’s late, now, and he really ought to be getting home. “You should come over, before you go. I’ll text you. I’m sure Martha would love to see you. Bring the Doctor, if you like.”

She agrees.

-

She goes back to the TARDIS.

“I still have your old room, if you want,” says the Doctor.

Rose hasn’t been in that room in years. She never got the chance when she came back: by the time she found the Doctor he was regenerating, and then they were with Davros, and then her Doctor appeared out of nowhere to fix everything, and the only peace they got was a bit of time sitting in the Vortex after dragging the Earth home, and she’d spent that stood in the console catching up with old friends and making new ones.

Does she want to sleep in a room she last saw at twenty years old?

“Maybe I’ll look in there in the morning,” says Rose. “I’ll kip somewhere else.”

So she gets a second room: a soft blue, a big double bed, a little wardrobe. The Doctor brings her some pyjamas from the wardrobe.

“We’re about the same size now,” says the Doctor, “and these fit me.”

“Thanks,” says Rose.

“Well. Um. Goodnight, then,” says the Doctor, and wanders off in the general direction of the console room.

“Night, Doctor,” Rose shouts at her back. The Doctor turns around, waves, and carries on walking. Rose laughs to herself, closes the door, and sits on the bed of this brand-new room in this old-familiar TARDIS. Clutching a pair of pyjamas that the Doctor has essentially just admitted that she wears. _These fit me_ , she’d said. She wears _her_ Doctor’s clothes all the time, overlong t-shirts and too-tight boxers to sleep in, but that’s in her new life, never back then, back on the TARDIS. Never before the metacrisis. It feels strangely intimate.

She puts them on, anyway, and lies awake for a long time trying to sort through the old, tangled feelings that have presented themselves once again, the complexities of sharing pyjamas with someone who is, in a lot of ways, her ex.

-

She gets a text from Mickey in the morning: she can come over whenever in the day, but August will be at nursery for a couple of hours in the morning.

The Doctor doesn’t come, in the end, and goes so far as dropping Rose off a couple of streets away: far enough that Martha and Mickey won’t be able to hear the TARDIS. Rose doesn’t question it, but suspects it’s something to do with hiding from old friends, with expectations and disappointments and, at least a little bit, a fear of seeing the evidence of the passing of time. Confronting other peoples’ mortality is not exactly a strong point of the Doctor’s.

Martha answers the door, looking surprisingly stunning for somebody in an old, grubby hoodie that Rose recognises as one Mickey had owned back in Pete’s World. She pulls Rose in for a hug, which feels very natural, like they hug all the time, like they were made to be friends. It doesn't feel at all like they met just once, twelve years ago.

"Hello," says Rose, "it's so nice to meet you properly."

"And you," says Martha. “I almost feel like I know you already.”

"I’ve heard a fair bit about you, too," says Rose, and of course she has: from Mickey most recently, but the Doctor (her Doctor) has dropped her name enough times that Rose has a fairly good idea. Bright and brilliant and charming and likeable, and by the sounds of it, far too good for the angry, grieving man the Doctor apparently was back then.

They go inside, and Mickey's got the kettle on. Rose hugs him, too, and it's nice. It's _so_ nice. She feels like she was meant to live this life, popping round to Mickey and Martha's for tea and a catchup; she feels like she should have been doing this for twelve years.

(But then, of course, dropping in on her mum and dad and little brother in between whizzing around the universe with a skinny man in a suit with a dash of grey at the temples feels just as natural, and nice, and meant-to-be.)

She explains the whole fabric of the universe thing again, because Martha asks. Says the Doctor's on it, but it can't hurt to have another brilliant mind looking into it.

"The Doctor?" says Martha.

"Yeah. Stumbled upon the original," says Rose. "Did I not say? She dropped me here."

" _She_?"

"She goes by she now," says Rose with a shrug.

The Doctor pops in, too, in the end. Well, actually, Mickey’s on his way out to empty the bins, finds a blonde woman hiding behind them, and Rose has to pop out to explain. She’d just been wondering when Rose was coming back, _didn’t want to bother anybody, but it’s nice to see you both_. Martha invites her in, and makes four cups of tea.

“You look a bit like Rose,” says Mickey, passing a mug of tea to the Doctor, who’s almost vibrating with nervous energy on the sofa.

Rose and the Doctor glance at each other.

Martha, passing a mug to Rose, smiles a little cheekily. “You do a bit,” she says.

“Really?” says the Doctor, sounding soft and a little bit pleased with herself.

“You _have_ copied my old haircut,” says Rose, whose own hair is longer again these days, a softer shade of blonde, roots recently dyed.

"I just regenerated with it, it wasn't intentional," says the Doctor, "mind you, that regeneration where you were there ... that sort of was intentional, in a way. That body was built for you."

Martha chokes on her tea, which acts as a distraction from the vague sense of alarm Rose is feeling.

Luckily, before the conversation can continue, the front door opens and a four-year-old boy dashes into the room. He’s _stunning_. Tiny even for four, with big eyes like Martha’s and a grin just as sweetly charming as Mickey’s.

“You’re back early,” says Martha, grinning.

“Auntie Tish drove really fast,” he shrugs. “Who’s this?”

“I’m Rose, and this is the Doctor,” says Rose, who’s already half in love with the small boy.

He doesn’t take so quickly to her, sends her suspicious looks as he hugs his mother and father, and then takes to the floor with some paper and crayons rather than introduce himself. The Doctor jumps up immediately, taking this as an excuse to leave. She says her goodbyes to Martha and Mickey (and to August, who doesn’t acknowledge her), tells Rose she’ll see her later, and practically runs from the building.

Mickey stares blankly after her, shrugs, and picks up August to have a post-nursery wash and change out of his stained clothes.

"Sorry about that. I think ... I think it's been a long time for her," says Rose with a sigh, when Martha looks absolutely baffled. "I think she’s worried nobody really wants her around. And I think she's even worse at being open than she was when we knew her."

"Speak for yourself," says Martha, "she wouldn't shut up about you when I knew her.”

Rose winces. "My Doctor sends his apologies for how he treated you," she says. "I don't think he quite realised how bad it was until I told him off after telling me about you. Course, he understood the whole emotionally scarring you and your family part, but ... "

Rose isn’t entirely sure how to finish that sentence. It’s a bit weird; so far as she can tell, Martha was very much treated as second best by the Doctor, but second best to Rose herself. She almost wants to apologise for being that impossible standard.

"Maybe give her a call sometime, if you want," says Rose instead. "I mean, not if you don’t want to, obviously, and I think she’ll stay away if you don’t want her around. But it might be good for her to have a connection. Someone that knows her.”

"Yeah," says Martha. "Maybe. It’s nice having old friends drop by." She pauses. "Mickey might worry I’ll run off with her, though, she’s gorgeous."

Rose giggles.

"You too?"

"I was completely over it, but that new look?” says Martha. “I worked with Jack up at Torchwood for a bit, I don’t think they let you in the building if you’re not bi.”

"I never really thought about labelling it," says Rose thoughtfully. "I just sort of chatted to a lot of people at work, cos nobody there seems to be straight and cis, and eventually worked out that maybe a lot of jealousies I used to have were maybe just crushes I hadn't recognised. Course, it never really mattered except for in theory …”

"Are you gonna run away from your long term relationship to traverse the universe with the female version of your partner?" Martha asks, half joking.

"No," says Rose, "absolutely not. I couldn’t do that to him.” There’s a pause, while Rose struggles to put a concept into words, struggles to hit the right tone in her head: she’s aiming for a sort of semi-joking philosophical air, a question that isn’t rhetorical but seems it. “But … do you think it counts as an emotional affair to realise you're still sort of in love with the Time Lord version of your partner?"

“I don’t think I can answer that,” says Martha through laughter. “I don’t suppose it helps that they were literally the same person until that day with Davros.”

Rose runs her fingers through her hair, twists the ends around a finger. "I never stopped being in love with her," she admits. "And I knew that. But it's one thing to know something theoretically …”

“And another thing to come back to your old universe and face it?” says Martha.

“Yeah,” says Rose. “And then of course she’s a woman now, which makes it even more surprising.”

-

“I can’t believe I’ve missed this,” says Rose a couple of hours later, once August has deemed her appropriate to interact with after all. CBeebies is on the television, and he’s nestled himself into her side, under her arm. “I should’ve been here. I should’ve been … babysitting, or something.”

“Yeah, you should’ve,” says Mickey with a grin. “Still, I should’ve been babysitting Tony with you, really. I always feel a bit bad about that.”

Rose isn’t the only one with regrets, then. Rose isn’t the only one who looks back and sees bits of life she should’ve had, should’ve carried with her, but didn’t.

She doesn’t tell Mickey that Tony still remembers him, if only vaguely. She doesn’t want him to feel worse about it. (Besides, Rose had been all too ready to abandon Tony herself all those years ago, and he’s her actual _brother_.)

Eventually, after lots of chatting, lots of CBeebies, and playing lots of games with August and his parents, it’s time for his bath. August permits Rose to give him a hug goodbye, and that feels like the biggest victory of the day.

She gives Martha a hug, too, and Mickey walks her to the door.

“I’ve only got about fifteen hours here,” she tells him, because she can’t stop thinking about it. She’s so grateful to have this time at all, but she can’t stop counting it down, worrying she’s not making the most of it, can’t stop grieving the loss before it’s happened.

“Come back in the morning,” says Mickey.

She walks back to the TARDIS feeling a little like she's ripping away part of her soul.

-

The Doctor is on the phone when she gets back.

“Yes, Yaz, I’m in London.” A pause. “I thought you wanted a couple of days off for your sister’s birthday. No, Ryan’s in Sheffield too, I think he and Graham were seeing friends or family or something. No – I can come and get you tomorrow? I’m sort of in the middle of something.”

She spots Rose and waves. Rose smiles and waves back.

“Okay, okay, I’ll come now.”

She hangs up the phone, looking slightly disgruntled.

“Right. I’ve got to pop to Sheffield to pick up my friends. Coming?”

-

They seem nice, the Doctor's friends. Yaz and Ryan seem so _young_ , but they can't be any younger than she was when she chucked her life away to travel through time and space. She doesn't ask, but they're travelling with Ryan’s granddad, so they can't be that old.

(Graham's grandfatherliness reminds her suddenly of Wilfred Mott, which reminds her to call him: she'd promised. For her Doctor, Donna's metacrisis twin. And a little bit for herself; she'd been in his house that day, she'd liked him.)

She doesn't want to get too close, though. She wants to tell them to appreciate every second but also to be careful, to keep an eye on life back home, to not take anybody for granted. Especially Yaz, who talks of her family so carelessly, like she's blissfully unaware how quickly they can be taken.

(She wonders if she should put Yaz in touch with Martha, just to push the point.)

Ryan, she senses from the conversation, has less at stake back home. Graham seems to be most of what's left of his family. But there are always friends, and they get hurt too: Mickey's living proof of that.

(That year she was gone comes to mind, and at the time it had just been frustrating but fifteen years on? She'd heard Mickey describe it in detail in those years they were both in Pete's World, sharing a flat and working flat out on that Dimension Cannon. She'd heard Jackie describe it in the years since. She imagines, sometimes, Tony disappearing, no explanation to be had, and shivers.)

The Doctor is different around them. Less open, somehow, and she was never really open to begin with. They don't seem to be particularly new to space travel, so they must have known her for at least a little while, but ... well. Rose remembers the Doctor had seemed so mysterious after they met, but she knew that there had been a war, and that everyone else was gone. This lot are begging Rose for answers as soon as the Doctor's out of the room.

"I don't want to tell you anything she's not comfortable with you knowing," says Rose, carefully, perching on the strange seating area near the decorative hexagonal column. Or maybe they're steps? This TARDIS is stunning, but the coral she's used to (the coral _her_ TARDIS is decorated with) makes so much more _sense_.

"Well, no, course not, but who are you to her?" Graham asks.

"We travelled together a while back," says Rose. She thinks the full story might be too overwhelming right now. She's only just met them. "How did you all meet her?"

"She fell into a train in Sheffield and helped us fight an alien called Tim Shaw," says Yaz brightly, sitting down next to Rose. Maybe they _are_ seats. "How about you?"

"She blew up my job," says Rose with a soft smile. "Long time ago, now."

"Wish she'd blown up _my_ job," says Ryan with a grin.

"That bad, is it?"

"Pretty much, yeah. It's a warehouse."

Rose laughs. "Mine was a big department store in London. Henriks."

Graham knows it, used to shop in there.

"Oh, were you in London for that alien hoax when they crashed into Big Ben, then?" he asks. "That was around the same time, wasn't it?"

"That was a year later," says Rose. "But yeah. I was around for that. We were trying to pop back and see my mother the day after I’d left, but got the dates wrong and ended up a year late. So make sure you keep an eye on her piloting.”

She doesn’t want to go too far and scare them, but she wants them to know.

The Doctor comes back before there’s time for anyone to do more than look vaguely alarmed at the prospect of accidentally missing a year of their lives.

"You're usually in bed by now, Graham," she says, "are you staying up just to harass Rose?"

"I’m not harassing anyone!"

"He's not," Rose confirms. She checks the time. Only twelve hours left. Maybe they _should_ get to bed – she’s got to call Wilf and ideally Jack and Sarah Jane in the morning, and fit in a goodbye to Martha and Mickey and August before she goes. It’d be best to get to bed early.

-

It's funny, this time limit. It reminds her of that beach all those years ago: that hologram, that two minute goodbye. This Doctor and her Doctor had been the same person then, not yet split in two thanks to a Dalek and Donna and a handy spare hand.

Only now, of course, it's twelve hours. And it's not quite so violently heart wrenching for Rose, given that she's got a Doctor of her very own back at home, a Doctor she's got a years-long history with.

She worries for this Doctor, though. This Doctor, who's the same person who once burnt up a sun to say goodbye to her all those years ago.

Rose feels almost like she does back then, back when she was twenty and she and the Doctor lived on a line in the sand, dancing around it and toeing at it and occasionally edging over it only to jump back if they went too far. Only this time it's less uncertainty, and more an attempt to be honest, and truthful, and respectful. She knows this Doctor loved her once; knows that it's been a very long time and that maybe those feelings have faded with the years the same way Rose thinks of Shareen and Keisha distantly and fondly, but rarely thinks about _loving_ them still.

She knows, too, that she doesn't want to do anything that will damage her relationship with her current Doctor. Even though it's weird to think that acting on anything with another version of the same person could ever be considered unfaithful.

And she doesn't want to make things weird for anybody else, in particular Yaz and Ryan and Graham. She wants to leave knowing that she's been a neutral-to-good influence on this universe in her thirty-six-hour visit.

She stays up with the Doctor even after everybody else has gone to bed, until it's late, and she's _got_ to sleep because she's got to be up to have a proper goodbye with Mickey and with Martha and with August. Because she's not going without one. Not this time.

"I’d better get some sleep," she says, and pads down to her new room. She still hasn’t been into her old room. Maybe she’ll pop in in the morning, just to grab some old photos, if there’s time.

She's just stepped in when there's a knock at the door. The Doctor is standing outside, examining the door very closely and giving off an extremely uncertain air.

“Are you okay?” says Rose.

"Can I ..." she pauses, fingers fidgeting rapidly, betraying all that nervous energy she carries around.

“What?”

“Can I … oh. No. Never mind. I’ll just …”

She makes to leave again, but Rose calls her name.

“You haven’t slept in a while, have you?” says Rose.

The Doctor doesn’t answer, just looks at her from halfway down the corridor.

“Do they not make sure you get a few hours here and there?”

Rose has worried so much about making sure that Yaz and Ryan and Graham know what they’re in for that she’s not quite considered the Doctor. If she’s not letting people in, which it seems that she isn’t, they won’t necessarily know the signs to look for. She doesn't like the idea of the Doctor travelling with people who won't hold her accountable for looking after herself; she might as well be travelling alone.

"They try," says the Doctor. "Doesn't always work."

“Come in here, if you like,” says Rose. She thinks that’s what the Doctor was trying to ask, before. Her Doctor had been telling her for years that he always slept better with somebody. Presumably that hasn’t changed with regeneration.

They lie in the double bed together, Rose in those pyjamas again, the Doctor in her t-shirt (blue, rainbow stripes) and some leggings she finds in the room’s wardrobe. Rose can’t sleep, can’t stop thinking about her Doctor and this Doctor and the things she loves about her life and the things she’s missing every day by living it. The Doctor, she can tell, is lying awake too. Her breathing is too shallow, she’s tossing and turning too much, and she can feel her toes tapping on the mattress.

She wants to ask the question she asked all those years ago on that beach, but she’s not entirely sure she wants to know the answer. And before Rose can work up the courage, the Doctor’s breathing evens out, and she stills.

-

The Doctor's gone when Rose wakes up. It's not surprising, really; the Doctor likely didn't sleep for more than a few hours. Time Lords don’t sleep much.

It's probably for the best, anyway. Sharing a bed was maybe a little too much.

She gets up to shower, comes back and finds the Doctor sitting on the bed.

"I was going to come back before you woke up," says the Doctor.

Rose doesn't really know what to say to that. It's getting weirdly romantic, like they've dived straight over all those lines they spent so long dancing around. But Rose has long since disposed of those lines with another version of this very same person.

Maybe the Time Lord version can only consider heading into romantic territory when there's a definitive deadline, when things are so close to being forcibly ended that there's no real risk. (Rose thinks of that first day on the beach, the half-finished sentence, the "I love you" that she'd been assured was coming, if only they'd had more time.)

She presumes it can't be this particular regeneration. If anything, this one is more tentative than any of the ones she'd known better.

"Oh. Is that not okay? Should I go?" the Doctor asks. She looks uncertain, stands up, hovers by the bed like she's not quite sure what the appropriate action is.

Rose, wrapped in a towel, smiles reassuringly. It's funny seeing the Doctor so unsure; this one seems perpetually on edge. The Doctor's never been entirely _good_ in social situations, has often been rude or abrupt or just plain _weird_ , but the ones she remembers were reasonably confident even with the poor judgement. This new one seems less comfortable, more concerned with getting things wrong. Rose wonders how much of it is basic regeneration personality differences, how much comes from experience, how much comes from presenting as a woman and being judged more harshly in some societies.

She doesn't ask, though.

"No, you're fine," says Rose. "I just wasn't expecting you to come back." It's nice, though. It's the sort of thing her Doctor does. (And in just a few hours she'll have him back, all his height and cheerful charm and that grin he gives her, dashing about the universe hand-in-hand and coming back to watch telly with Tony on a Saturday, and no matter what she'll miss about _this_ world, no matter how much she's dreading leaving Mickey forever all over again, leaving this Doctor all alone again, she's _really_ looking forward to wrapping herself up in _her_ Doctor again. She's not been apart from him in this long for years.)

"Oh," says the Doctor. "Well. Um. I’ll just leave you to get dressed."

-

Rose has four hours left, and quite a few things to do.

First port of call is a phone call. Wilfred Mott.

She tries to make it quick - she's got Martha and Mickey to fit in, and Sarah Jane to look into, and ideally she'll at least get in a phone call to Jack before she has to go, but then she's also got to work out how to fit in a goodbye to this Doctor, express all the love she still carries, make sure she looks after her new friends and also that they look after her, and send all her well wishes through.

Wilf doesn't make it easy, though. He wants to know all about the Doctor, all about the metacrisis, all about everything. And Rose wants to know how he's doing, how Donna's doing.

They're both fine, thankfully; he's into his nineties by now but still going strong, still stargazing out on that hill, still living with Sylvia. It's just the two of them for now, but Donna and her husband Shaun are trying to convince the pair of them to move in with them.

"She says we're getting old," Wilf grumbles, "I said to her, Donna, sweetheart, I’ve looked after myself for ninety years, I’ll be fine." Donna and Shaun have an adopted daughter, Evie, who’s seven. Donna’s got a permanent job doing the admin for a local homeless shelter. Rose thanks Wilf for the information, tells him he should call the Doctor, if he likes.

That's one hour gone.

She dashes to Martha and Mickey's next, and it's from them that she finds out that Sarah Jane has died, which shocks her, twists her insides in a horrible, horrible way. She should've been at the funeral. There are so many events she missed, and that's one of them.

She tells Martha and Mickey to look after themselves. Tells Martha that the Doctor (her Doctor) sends his love; that the other Doctor sends hers, too. Tells her that she wishes they'd had more time, that they should've had a lifelong friendship, that she'd have loved to be at her wedding, that she's so glad that she and Mickey have each other. Tells Mickey that she loves him, that Jackie and Pete and Jake send their love, finally tells him that Tony sometimes talks of vague, blurred memories of being babysat by him; that both Doctors send love. Tells him that he's her biggest regret, that she's sorry she wasn't better to him all those years ago, that she misses him and she's sorry she couldn't be here to sit at his wedding and babysit his son. And she gives August a big hug and tells him to look after himself, and to be brave and good and strong and beautiful, that love is the most important thing he can carry and that he should stand up for what's right.

And then she gives Martha and Mickey their own hugs, and says a final goodbye, unable to stop herself tearing up as she leaves.

That takes two hours. She could easily have taken longer, but she needs to see other people, too.

One hour left. She tries the last number she has saved for Jack Harkness, but nothing; tries the last number Mickey and Martha gave her, and nothing. She's asked them to send him her love, too, if they ever get back in touch with him.

With forty minutes left, she wanders the TARDIS corridors in search of the Doctor. This has to be the final goodbye, of course. No matter how much she's worried for this Doctor, she has a whole life that she loves and she's not giving that up for a Time Lord. not again.

She finds Yaz, first, munching on some toast in a corridor.

"Looking for the Doctor?" says Yaz.

"Yeah," says Rose. "I’ve only got a bit over half an hour before I have to go."

"Were you together, back in the day?" Yaz asks, softly, keeping her voice down as though someone might be listening in the corridor.

"We would’ve been, maybe, if she’d been any good at talking about feelings.” Rose takes a breath, wants to give Yaz a sort of warning and a sort of encouragement all at once. “Listen, it was nice to meet you. Look after yourself. And look after her. She's more fragile than she seems. And ... look up Martha Jones and Mickey Smith, if you ever want to talk. They travelled with her too, once.”

Rose brushes past, and eventually finds the Doctor in the console room hammering at something. Twenty-eight minutes.

"Are you still here?" says the Doctor.

"I’m not leaving without saying goodbye," says Rose. "I don't want to have to leave that gap in the universe open for enough time for me to track down a supernova to orbit."

The Doctor smiles, a proper one, wide and soft and genuine.

Rose takes a breath. "Look. I - I’m not any better at this time limit thing than I was then," she laughs. "Please be careful with your friends. I know you don't mean to hurt people, but making decisions for people hurts them. The danger is a choice, and ... it's worked out okay for me in the end, but it took me a long time to get past that rejection on the beach. Donna seems to be okay, but she lost a lot of memories, and that must've had repercussions. You need to understand that the people you're travelling with have agency, and have the right to decide what happens to them as much as possible."

"Right," says the Doctor, who's stepped back, carefully looking at the bit of the TARDIS she's hammering rather than at Rose. "Noted."

"But let them be careful with you, too," says Rose. "You seem lonely. I think you're happier when you let people in. It's not a bad thing to let people in."

The Doctor nods, still closely examining the TARDIS.

"And ... thank you. I wouldn't have missed any of this for the world," says Rose. "I loved you then, and it's so easy to love you now, still. Someone else would find it as easy as I do, if you wanted."

The Doctor looks up at this, all wide eyed and almost smiling. She puts the hammer down, and moves to sit down on the jumpseat.

"I loved you, too," says the Doctor, softly, so softly Rose almost doesn't catch it. "I loved you when you were there, so much it surprised me, so much it scared me. And I loved you after, so much that ... well, I’m sure you've heard about poor Martha."

"I know," says Rose. This is unprecedented, this level of honesty, but then it’s been a long time for them both. And this really is their last goodbye.

They share a smile. Rose checks her watch: ten minutes.

And then, impulsive with the threat of time running out, Rose steps forward, tangles her hand in the Doctor's blonde hair, and kisses her. It's something familiar and nostalgic and new all at once; she kisses like _her_ Doctor (of course she does, they started life as the same person) but there's something new and surprising in there, too. It's a melancholy moment, filled with the gentle nostalgia of would haves and could haves and should haves; two people who spent too long dancing around each other and missed their moment. It's ancient history, brought back in gentle longing.

"We never got the chance, me and you," says Rose when she pulls away, her face warm with what she's sure is a brilliant bright blush. "Not really. Not properly."

"No," says the Doctor. Rose notices she's blushing, too.

"Well," says Rose. "I've only got six minutes left. Just ... you know. You're _not_ alone in this, no matter how much it feels like it."

"That's more time than I ever thought I'd get," says the Doctor. They're sitting in the console room, cuddled up on the jumpseat like in the old days. It's different now, of course; back in the day, she'd been much taller than Rose, had to fold herself up to wrap herself around Rose. These days it's only about an inch between them.

Rose smiles. "Yeah, I s'pose. And I can't leave, this time. I really can't. The other you and I ..." she pauses. "it's been twelve years, you know? I've had longer with him just in that universe than I ever had with you beforehand."

"You don't have to explain yourself to me," says the Doctor. "I get it. I engineered the situation, and then I ran away because I thought a goodbye might be too hard."

Rose laughs, but tearily. “Yeah. Well, you’re getting one, now. Goodbye, Doctor.”

"Bye, Rose," says the Doctor. Rose smiles, stands up, presses the button on the cannon, and crosses the void, one last time.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this whole thing just because i wanted a 13/rose kiss scene. obviously it's the smallest kiss in the world because i couldn't make it work any other way.


End file.
